How impressive is RDA's win over Pettis in hindsight?

Pettis had a ton of hype behind him after finishing Bendo and Giblert and I thought RDA beating him was huge but looking back now I don't know.

The blueprint to beat Pettis is pretty clear. He has no idea how to get his back away from the cage and you can just hold him there for the whole round like Eddie/RDA did. Duke was yelling at him to get away from the cage but he just couldn't.

I thought the Guida fight was a fluke but now I'm not so sure. It's a good thing that Khabib fight never happened. It would have been tough to watch. I think Ferguson beats Pettis pretty easy too.

Alvarez beat Pettis by holding on for dear life for a couple of rounds. RDA beat Pettis by outstriking him, punishing him for five rounds along with using strategic grappling. He beat that ass for 25 minutes. Crazy beatdown.

It was still very impressive, but Pettis has been exposed a bit as we now pretty much have the blueprint on how to beat him. Still a great win, but probably doesn't hold quite the weight it did at the time.

The blueprint has been there since Guida. But RDA beat the living hell out of him in striking as well. People keep talking about RDA's win over Pettis as though his striking wasn't what allowed him to dominate from the get go, when it was clearly the hard kicks and big left that were hurting Pettis.

Who'd have thunk that the guy that got his head shoryuken'd off by Jeremy Stephens would come back and beat the WEC Holy Trinity - all in very convincing fashion.

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What's funny was at the time, the perception was that the UFC elite LW's were markedly better than the WEC Trinity; 'Sure, Bendo is good but he will get murked by a guy like Frankie". The same thing with Strikeforce' MW's. I guess it just goes to show that there is not a massive talent gap differential at the highest levels of the game, or between UFC guys and other org's top prospects.

Sadly, me thinks that the WEC wrecking crew are nearing the tail end of their careers (Condit, Faber, Aldo, Cerrone, Pettis, Bendo) in terms of competing for the belt. Sure, Cruz has a belt and I can see another 2 or 3 of those guys fighting for a title but they are mostly on the downside of their careers at the highest level. The game has also evolved so much from a mere 7-8 years ago too, it's just crazy how much evolution goes on in this sport at the highest levels, in such small time periods.